244 And … heavenly He is still thinking of his claim that Emilia is a goddess.

  247 Pirithous Why Pirithous acts on Arcite’s behalf is never explained. Chaucer says that they had been friends for many years in Thebes. In Davenant’s adaptation, the character corresponding to Pirithous owes his life to him.

  249 Upon … life Arcite has taken an oath on pain of death.

  253 a fortune a chance

  255 strike a battle make war. In KT, when Palamon escapes from prison, his intention is to do precisely this. Here, he assumes that Arcite will prove his worth as a lover not only by breaking his oath but by leading an army against the man who has just released him.

  261 take … her behave like a man. This joke about women ravishing men recurs in The Wild Goose Chase (Bowers, 6: 2.1.51–2) and The Pilgrim (Bowers, 6: 4.2.32), both of which were acted c.1621.

  263 charge order

  discharge my life execute me

  265 too open giving too much of a view, or too much space for a possible escape

  266-7 Cf. Posthumus’ conversation with the Jailer: ‘Post [humus]. I am call’d to be made free. Gaol[er]. I’ll be hang’d then’ (Cym 5.4.193–5).

  267 By … light a common oath. Cf. the pun on ‘heavenly light’ in Oth 4.3.63–4.

  269 pelting worthless

  271 May … the garden i.e., from my new cell

  273 for because

  276 a new morris a new kind of morris; the dance was traditionally performed by dancers with bells on their clothes

  * * *

  263 to –] Oxf; too. Q

  280 bury me Skeat interprets this to mean that not seeing Emilia again is like death and burial. The line may be more literal if the Jailer leads him downstairs (from an upper level) or through a trap door (from the main stage level), as if into a lower part of the prison.

  2.3

  2.3.0.1 Though Arcite is not yet in the ‘poor disguise’ which he plans to adopt, he cannot be dressed like a prince, since the countrymen treat him as an equal. He probably wears a plain cloak to cover either his costume from the previous scene or the one for 2.5.

  1 Banished the kingdom? Webster twice uses a similar entrance line: ‘Banished!’ (WD, 1.1.1) and ‘Banished Ancona!’ (DM, 3.5.1). Arcite, however, is being banished to his own country from an enemy land.

  4 studied carefully devised

  9 break (like the day)

  13-17 This parallels Palamon’s lines at 2.2.250–8; the fact that each man has a soliloquy in which he envies the other man’s happiness creates irony at the expense of both. Cf. KT, 1234ff. and 1281ff.

  * * *

  2.3] Scæna 3. Q

  18 Come … come proverbial (Dent, C529). In Q the last two words are crowded into the line above. The hypermetrical phrase may have been intended as a substitution for ‘The worst is death’, which, the author perhaps realized, anticipates the end of the speech.

  20-1 heap … there This is true in Boccaccio, but not in KT.

  22 shape disguise, role

  make me bring me success

  23 Or … fortunes perhaps echoes the ambiguous words of Mercury, who, in KT, tells Arcite in a dream, ‘To Athens shalt thou wend / There is the[e] shapen of thy woe an end’ (1391–2)

  24 no more i.e., dead (‘be’ is understood)

  24 SD The ‘one with a garland’ presumably displays the prize offered for the forthcoming games. Perhaps he is the winner of an earlier competition; cf. 2.5.0.3.

  25-62 These lines obviously confused the compositor, who prints them as verse until 39, after which there is no further attempt to make them scan, though they are given initial capitals and unjustified margins, and they are finally printed as prose from 43 to 61. Bowers suggests that the scene may have been written originally in verse and revised as prose. Some editions, most recently Oxf1, print all the Countrymen’s lines as prose. I have indicated a loose blank-verse rhythm where I could perceive it.

  * * *

  17–18] this edn; one line Q 24.1 Countrymen] Dyce; Country people Q garland] garlond Qc; Garlon Qu 24.2] this edn; not in Q

  28 have with ye I’ll join you. The first three countrymen have persuaded the fourth (a ploughman) to join them in abandoning work for the day.

  a chiding a scolding, from either his master or his wife

  29 play remain idle

  29-30 tickl’t … tomorrow flog the plough-horses harder to make up for lost time. Given the numerous sexual puns that follow, these lines probably have a double meaning: jade is often a disparaging term for ‘woman’.

  31 turkey turkeycock, proverbially associated with redness and swelling; see Dent, T612. Waith (Oxf1) notes that an emblem book of 1579 depicts it, with tail spread, defending its territory.

  32 go through keep my promise

  mumble grumble under her breath

  33 Clap her aboard in nautical terminology, ‘board her like a ship’ (OED v. IV 10e)

  stow her fill her up, like the hold of a ship (figuratively, have intercourse with her and, possibly, get her pregnant)

  34 made up both ‘reconciled’ and ‘filled a gap’ (OED v. 96d), the latter in a sexual sense. In other words, ‘Give her a good night’s sex, and she’ll forgive you.’

  35 fescue ‘A small stick, pin, etc. used for pointing out the letters to children learning to read; a pointer’ (OED, which gives this as an example). Here, with the double meaning of penis.

  36 Take … out study a new lesson

  37 hold … Maying stick to our intention about taking part in the maying

  38 What should ail us? What could stop us?

  39-40 Arcas … Sennois … Rycas See ‘Countrymen’, List of Roles.

  * * *

  34–5 Ay … see her] one line Q 37–8 Hold? … us] one line Q 39–61] prose Q

  42 dainty fine; sarcastic, like the other references to the Schoolmaster

  dominie from the vocative form of dominus – master (Latin); hence, a colloquial term for schoolmaster

  43 Keep touch keep his promise to be there

  he does all he is the organizer (with the implication of busybody)

  44 hornbook flat piece of horn with the alphabet and other basic information inscribed on it, for the use of beginning pupils. Possibly with the double meaning of cuckolding or being cuckolded.

  Go to scoffing expression (here, directed at the idea that the Schoolmaster could resist organizing the maying)

  45 The matter’s … driven he is already too committed (sexually); what he has driven home is obvious

  47 she must see she insists on seeing

  48 lusty lively, jolly (a rhetorical question)

  49 Blow … on’s will have to run to keep up with us. (Proudfoot cites KBP, 1.62: ‘If any of them all blow winde in the taile on him, Il’e be hang’d’.) ‘To have a breeze in his breech’ is proverbial (Dent, B651); here, it is probably used for the sake of a pun on breaking wind.

  breech buttocks

  50-1 And there … again Leech suggests that at this point the Second Countryman gives a demonstration of the dancing he expects to do in the May celebrations.

  50 for our town for the honour of our town. In drama, morris dancers see their dance as an expression of local pride, like ‘the Holloway Morrice’ in Jack Drum’s Entertainment, 1.1. In KBP Ralph, as May Lord, refers to these customs: ‘With bels on legs, and napkins cleane unto your shoulders tide, / With scarfes and Garters as you please, and Hey for our Town cri’d: / March out and show your willing minds by twenty and by twenty’ (4. [Interlude] 51–3).

  51 hey … weavers The Second Countryman is a weaver (like the equally enthusiastic Bottom, Leech points out) and expects to cheer for his craft as well as his town. See Fig. 20, p. 404.

  * * *

  41 ye] Seward; yet Q

  52 This probably the proposed maying, including the dance in which the Second Countryman is trying to get them to join

  Oh, pardon me a mild expression of doubt, to which the Second Countryman replies by agreeing with the First: the morris is to interrupt the hunting in the woods, rather than forming part of the games at court

  53 our thing of learning the Schoolmaster

  54 edify instruct. He is probably making fun of the Schoolmaster’s vocabulary; cf. 3.5.94 and 97.

  55 parlously a contraction of ‘perilously’, originally meaning ‘dangerously’ but here, as often, ‘amazingly’, with a sarcastic inflection (see OED)

  56 makes no cry is unheard, unregarded, like the cry of hounds, whose sound also was more musical in the woods. The countrymen are well aware that their show could never be performed at court.

  57 every … tackle get his equipment ready for the dance; a conflation of ‘every man as his business lies’ (Dent, M104) and ‘stand to one’s tackling’ (Dent, T7). There is probably more sexual innuendo here: the countrymen obviously expect the pairing in the dance to be followed by pairing in the woods.

  59 do perform (but see also 43n.)

  60 God … on’t He may hope for favour from Theseus but he is probably most interested in his effect on the women dancers.

  62 hold keep your promise to turn up. The amateur actors’ first scene in MND ends, ‘hold, or cut bow-strings’ (1.2.111).

  * * *

  53 says] Seward; (sees); sed Oxf 61–5] prose Q 62 SD] Leech; not in Q

  By … friends a polite apology for intrusion, using a common form of address to unknown social inferiors. The situation here recalls Per (2.1), where a princely hero restores his lost fortunes, with the help of humble people, through success in a tournament. RP points out that in Gower’s Confessio Amantis, the source of Pericles, it is success in the ‘comun game’ (country sports), not a tournament, that brings the hero to the attention of the king and his daughter (Gower, 2.8.678).

  64-5 Why … not Using a common catchphrase (see Dent, Q11.1), Arcite replies literally (but politely) to the scoffing rhetorical question.

  65 games italicized in Q here and at 67, like a proper name, perhaps because Fletcher thought of them as Olympic games. See Appendix 5, p. 402.

  67 marry See 2.1.7n.

  71 along (with us)

  72 My mind … me I have an uneasy feeling

  73 vengeance terrific; a colloquial adjective, like parlous (see 55).

  trick o’th’ hip This seems to have been regarded as the key to success in wrestling; hence, ‘to have one on the hip’ (Dent, H474) means to have an advantage over someone. ‘The reference is not to the hip of the vanquished wrestler, as some think, but to that of the victor. If the wrestler can succeed in hitching his hip in a certain way under his adversary’s body, he may often succeed in throwing with almost irresistible violence’ (Skeat).

  75 plum porridge the sort of person who would eat this thick sweet broth ‘made of beef, dried fruits, white bread, spices, wine and sugar; eaten at Christmas’ (Proudfoot). ‘Milksop’ derives from the same idea.

  76 He … roast eggs He’d do the latter better than the former. Skeat notes that turning eggs on a spit before the fire required more patience than intelligence. Herford quotes the proverb, ‘Set a fool to roast eggs, and a wise man to eat them.’

  78 Well … wrestled ‘I once knew how to wrestle well.’ The construction also modifies run (79).

  80-1 Swifter … flew Hickman (144) compares Fletcher’s Bonduca (c. 1611–14), where cowards are said to run from battle faster than ‘the light shadows, / That in a thought scur ore the fields of Corn’ (Bowers, 4: 1.1.93–4). Both passages imitate Virgil’s famous description of Camilla: ‘Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret / gramina nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas’ [She might have flown o’er the topmost blades of unmown corn, nor in her course bruised the tender ears] (Virgil, 7.808–9), which is often cited (as in Pope’s Essay on Criticism, 372–3) as an example of verse that mimics the speed it describes.

  81 never often emended to ‘ever’ or ‘e’er’, but the sense is clear and double negatives are not uncommon in this period

  83 girt circled

  84 happiness prefer me luck, or success, act in place of a patron to me

  * * *

  76 SD] Exeunt 4 Q 78 Well] Seward; Well, Q 80 Swifter than] 1711; Swifter, then Q; Swifter the Seward 2.4] Scæna 4. Q

  a place an office at court (normally achieved through ‘preferment’)

  2.4

  2.4.1 ’Tis odds the odds are enormous that

  2 affect like or love

  5 To … whore to have sex with him without being married to him

  Out upon’t a generalized exclamation of disgust, perhaps at the idea just expressed, perhaps at the situation of women in general

  6 pushes extremities, expedients

  7 When fifteen … us when we are past the age of puberty. The Wooer later says (5.2.31) that she is 18. Cf. ‘these women, when they are once thirteene, god speede the plough’ (The Coxcomb, Bowers, 1: 1.3.5–6).

  First … him Like Palamon (see 2.2.160, above), she stresses the importance of sight.

  13 maidenhead virginity

  18 what … keeps what noise (or trouble) he causes (Dent, C505)

  20 his songs These are mentioned again at 4.3.80–1; Laertes, similarly, warns Ophelia against Hamlet’s songs (1.3.30).

  23 salutes greets

  28 me as much object of grieves

  30 would fain want to enjoy love him sexually. The Daughter no longer sees this as witless (see 4–5, above).

  32 Thus much A contemptuous gesture, perhaps snapping her fingers, supplies the missing beat at the end of 31.

  kindred her father, who will be punished for her action

  32-3 I … me The Q punctuation is ambiguous: does this night refer to setting Palamon free or to his loving her? Montgomery (see t.n.) emends or to ‘e’re’, which he takes to be a variant spelling, on the grounds that the Daughter is now too committed to her own fantasy to think of qualifications or alternatives to it. The choice here both depends on and determines one’s reading of her character.

  * * *

  32] Dyce; much / For Q 33 or tomorrow,] Bawcutt; or tomorrow: 1778; or (=ere) to-morrow Oxf 2.5] Scæna 4. Q 0.1] This short flo-/ rish of Cor-/ nets and / Showtes with-/ in. in margin opp. 0.2–3 Q A] Oxf; This Q 0.3 attendants and spectators] Proudfoot subst.; &c. Q

  2.5

  2.5.0.2–3 Arcite may be wearing or carrying the garland.

  2 Hercules Cf. 1.1.66–9 and n.

  4 allow provide; perhaps Theseus implies that men have degenerated since the heroic days of Hercules

  7 gave me life dedicated my life

  8 His youngest The folktale hero is always the youngest son – like Orlando, the successful wrestler in AYL 1.2.

  9 a happy sire because even his youngest son is such a paragon. (The eldest might be assumed to have more of the father in him; see AYL 1.1.49–51.)

  *What profess you? ‘What skills have you?’ Q’s prooves has been accepted by many editors on the assumption that it means, ‘What proves you to be a gentleman?’ Ingram’s suggestion scans better; cf. Lear’s ‘What dost thou profess?’ when Kent asks to be taken into service (KL 1.4.11).

  10 noble qualities qualifications, accomplishments, associated with nobility

  11 could have kept probably ‘once knew how to keep’ (cf. 2.3.78) rather than conditional. Arcite means that his aristocratic accomplishments are above his present means and poor garments.

  hallowed see 2.2.48n.

  13 Jackson notes that the 1679 reading anticipates 5.4.71–3.

  14 it horsemanship

  piece accomplishment

  15 perfect complete

  16 proper handsome

  19 sort social class

  Believe believe me (common in Fletcher; cf. 4.1.47)

  21 goes that way resembles her (cf. the description at 4.2.105–11)

  22 illustrate show, give lustre to; stressed on the second syllable. The image is developed in the next line.

  * * *

  9 profess] Littledale (Ingram); prooves Q 13 seat] Jackson (F); feat Q

  24 well got of a noble father, as opposed to well born (of a noble mother); they may think that he is the illegitimate son of some nobleman. Though the notion of noble birth revealing itself despite humble dress is generally taken seriously in the drama (Cym and WT are obvious examples), it is possible that this discussion is meant to seem drawn-out and patronizing.

  26 To purchase name to win fame (by desert, not chance). The phrasing, suggesting that his name at present is not worth knowing, avoids the need to give an assumed one. In KT Arcite called himself Philostrate (the recurrence of the name in MND is one of that play’s many links with Chaucer); in Per the hero also fights anonymously at a tournament, but the crowd gives him a name (‘the mean knight’) based on his appearance (Per 2.2.59 SD).

  27 well-found established

  30 travel refers to Arcite’s coming from far off, with a pun on travail (his efforts in the sports)

  31 your wish to be part of the court

  35 observe her goodness wait on, pay respect to, this good lady

  * * *

  34 SD] this edn; not in Q

  * * *

  39 SD] Dyce; not in Q

  43 use treat

  44 furnished (with suitable clothes and accoutrements)

  46 one horse

  50 by the sun by sunrise

  do observance pay respect; Skeat compares KT (‘And for to doen his observances to May’ (1500)) and MND (‘To do observance to a morn of May’ (1.1.167)).

  51 Dian’s wood Not so-called in KT where, however, Theseus’ love of hunting is equated with the service of Diana (1682). Given the association of maying with sexual licence, the name seems ironically chosen.

  57 If I do not (serve faithfully)

  59 Disgrace and blows The comma after disgrace in Q clarifies the distinction between what Arcite’s fictitious father hated (disgrace) and what an unsatisfactory servant would deserve (blows).